Defrost

The current Nairobi weather is creating a wardrobe crisis for many. It’s quite undecided. You leave the house heavily padded to tackle our winter. Then later in the day the sun chomokas and you start overheating because you can’t shed off some of the clothes you wore when leaving home. Freeze and shine can instantly turn hot and sweaty.

Just like the weather life does behave the same way. Curveballs are thrown at us bila notice. And yet we are expected to find a way of moving on. Time (and life itself) waits for no one. It just keeps rolling on. I feel the pressure of moving on makes me uncomfortable to just chill and take time off, especially after the huge curveball (more like a boulder) life threw at my family on the eighth of May when dad left us. Or could it be the fear of missing out (FOMO) or just scarcity mentality? Learning to rest and be present is a skill I’m continuously learning.

I’m finding myself swamped trying to clear the intray dad left behind. I’m probably not grieving my father very well. I’m not even sure what that looks like. My editor, Purey suggested that I do more things that I love, things that feed my soul. I like that. It may bring a good balance between doing the stuff that needs to be done and celebrating being alive as I break in between. For that reason, I plan to head to the Masai mara next month for a photo safari and hopefully capture great shots of the wildebeest migration.

The challenge with curveballs is that they put well laid out plans on hold and force us onto a detour we least expected, understood or wanted. Life is a series of detours that if well-handled lead to a meaningful and successful existence. And that’s where we need help mostly in the form of reminders for the need to be flexible as we move along.

We all handle the surprises life pulls on us in different ways. Some of us will deal with loss better than others. Some will take longer to get unstuck while others will use the loss as a springboard to a better life. Since I lost my dad, I have noticed that I’ve slowed down on the new exciting ventures I had begun, namely photography and coaching. I know I need to get back to them because they enrich my life plus help me adjust positively to my new reality.

A friend recently challenged me to have a plan for my photography over the remaining half of this year. To find new ways of putting my work out there and positioning myself for opportunities and engagements. I think he must have sensed my desire to but noticed that I’m stuck. That chat is what motivated me to plan a trip to the mara next month. Actions are what get us moving because hope is not a strategy. We’ll see how that goes. Dad would have wanted me to do that anyway.

Life can be fair in the sense that when it’s foggy and unclear for one person it’s sunny and clear for another. But for someone to defrost our fog, we would need to have done the same for them and others when they needed it.

Now after my pal’s challenge I’m getting more intentional on growing my photography and coaching. He has even committed to being my accountability partner because I might easily get sidetracked dealing with personal stuff. Is this running away from my current reality? I don’t think so. We still need time to just pause and let our souls heal polepole. It’s a balance.

While we may think we have it all together, folks sometimes could be getting off track gradually. So it’s key to allow a few people to look into our situation and help us get back on course, especially when in one of life’s ditches like I am currently. I’ll emphasise here that it’s advisable those few people need to have earned meddling rights.